The invention relates to a new method for handling a phonebook stored on an exchangeable card memory in portable communication terminal.
A SIM Card according to the GSM specification xe2x80x9cSpecification of the Subscriber Identity Modulexe2x80x94Mobile Equipment (SIMxe2x80x94ME) interfacexe2x80x9d, GSM 11.11 version 5.5.0, published by European Telecommunications Standards Institute, cannot store multiple phone numbers per name. Multiple phone numbers per name is a very useful feature that allows the user for the same name to store for instance private number, company number, mobile number, fax number etc for each name in his memory. The reason that the SIM Card does not support this is that the SIM memory is a simple xe2x80x9clinearxe2x80x9d storage unit with a row of xe2x80x9cdrawersxe2x80x9d in which a name/label and only one corresponding number can be stored. Both the name/label and the phone number are bound by a pre-set format defined by the operator. Very often only 15 letters are allowed in the name/label area. This causes a problem if the name/label area has to identify both the owner of the phone number and the type of phone number, e.g. xe2x80x9cChristian homexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cChristian workxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cChristian mobilexe2x80x9d. The problem increases when two or more persons have the same given name and each have multiple phone numbers. Then it is hard to distinguish between the names and hard to recognize truncations have to be used.
The Nokia 9000 Communicator(trademark) is provided with a contact card directory stored in an internal memory of the phone/communicator. The contact cards each includes identification fields such as fields for xe2x80x9cnamexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9ccompanyxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cjob titlexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9caddressxe2x80x9d of the person, and a plurality of associated phone number fields such as xe2x80x9cphonexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cmobilexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cfaxxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cmobile faxxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cE-mailxe2x80x9d. When a SIM card based phonebook is copied to the dictionary, the names and numbers will as default be copied to the xe2x80x9cnamexe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cphonexe2x80x9d fields of the contact cards.
The contact card directory of the Nokia 9000 Communicator(trademark) is much more complex than the SIM card based phonebook so basically all information from the contact card directory has to be transferred manually to the SIM card based phonebook.
In accordance with the invention there is provided a method of handling phonebook records stored on an exchangeable smart card in order to display dialing numbers associated with a requested name label, said smart card includes a phonebook memory having a group of records each of which is associated with a record identification number, a name label field in which a name label may be stored and a dialing number field in which a dialing number may be stored, said method includes steps of:
sorting in the phonebook memory in order to identify records in said group of records having name labels corresponding to he name label requested;
associating the dialing numbers of the identified records with type labels in dependence of the corresponding record identification number; and
displaying both the dialing numbers and the associated type labels.
and communication terminal for handling phonebook records stored on an exchangeable smart card in order to display dialing numbers associated with a requested name label, said smart card includes a phonebook memory having a group of records each of which is associated with a record identification number, a name label field in which a name label may be stored and a dialing number field in which a dialing number may be stored, said terminal comprises:
display means for displaying information;
means for establishing a releasable connection to an exchangeable smart card; and
processor means for processing the phonebook information to be displayed in the display upon request from the user, said processor means:
sorts the phonebook memory in order to identify records in said group of records having name labels corresponding to he name label requested;
associates the dialing numbers of the identified records with type labels in dependence of the corresponding record identification number, and
sets up a display image for the display in which the types of the dialing numbers are indicated by the associated type label.
Embodiments of the invention provide a method of handling phonebook records stored on an exchangeable smart card in order to display a set of dialing numbers associated with a requested name label.
A phone user changes his phone from time to time and he does not want to use a lot of time in order to re-establish his phonebook. Therefore the possibility to store and transfer the multiple phone numbers via the SIM Card is very attractive. Embodiments of this invention allow this option.
The smart card includes a phonebook memory having a group of records each of which is associated with a record identification number, a name label field in which a name label may be stored and a dialing number field in which a dialing number may be stored.
This is obtained by a method including steps of sorting in the phonebook memory in order to identify records in said group of records having name labels corresponding to the name label requested; associating the dialing numbers of the identified records with type labels in dependence of the corresponding record identification number; and displaying both the dialing numbers and the associated type labels.
Hereby it also has become possible to store several phone numbers under the same name label on the smart card or the SIM (GSM) of the phone. When these name labels are identified the relative position of the record determines whether the associated dialling number is a work phone number, a mobile phone number, a private phone number, a fax number, etc. Based on this information the phone sets up a phonebook display image for displaying the dialling numbers associated with a certain name label and the type of these dialling numbers.
An advantage of the invention is that transferring the smart card to this phone may transfer the phonebook to another telephone. If both phones support the invention the displayed information will be similar to each other. However the phonebook will remain readable even when the smart card is transferred to phones not supporting the multiple phone number concept.
The invention furthermore relates to a communication terminal for handling phonebook records stored on an exchangeable smart card in order to display dialing numbers associated with a requested name label, said smart card includes a phonebook memory having a group of records each of which is associated with a record identification number, a name label field in which a name label may be stored and a dialing number field in which a dialing number may be stored. Said terminal comprises display means for displaying information; means for establishing a releasable connection to an exchangeable smart card; and processor means for processing the phonebook information to be displayed in the display upon request from the user. The processor means sorts the phonebook memory in order to identify records in said group of records having name labels corresponding to he name label requested; associates the dialing numbers of the identified records with type labels in dependence of the corresponding record identification number, and sets up a display image for the display in which the types of the dialing numbers are indicated by the associated type label.
The basic idea is simply to store the phone numbers for each name on the SIM card using the same name for all numbers for that name, and in an order that is relative correct for the names available for each name. In this way the position number (short code) on the SIM card is used to define what type of number it is (GSM, Fax, Private and work number).
Numbers for a particular name will all be stored on the SIM using the original name. This assures that the SIM phone book can be read and will even look meaningful in phones not supporting the concept according to the invention.